README.asc

Executive summary

Cassandra is a partitioned row store. Rows are organized into tables with a required primary key.

Partitioning means that Cassandra can distribute your data across multiple machines in an application-transparent matter. Cassandra will automatically repartition as machines are added and removed from the cluster.

Row store means that like relational databases, Cassandra organizes data by rows and columns. The Cassandra Query Language (CQL) is a close relative of SQL.

Finally, we start the server. Running the startup script with the -f argument will cause
Cassandra to remain in the foreground and log to standard out; it can be stopped with ctrl-C.

$ bin/cassandra -f

Note for Windows users: to install Cassandra as a service, download
Procrun, set the
PRUNSRV environment variable to the full path of prunsrv (e.g.,
C:\procrun\prunsrv.exe), and run "bin\cassandra.bat install".
Similarly, "uninstall" will remove the service.

Now let’s try to read and write some data using the Cassandra Query Language:

$ bin/cqlsh

The command line client is interactive so if everything worked you should
be sitting in front of a prompt: